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Information, Documentation and Training Agency, Arusha (Tanzania):
News
12.01.05
ICTR/ PROSECUTION - BELGIAN PROFESSOR SUSPENDS COOPERATION WITH ICTR PROSECUTION
Arusha, January 11th, 2005 (FH) - Professor Filip Reyntjens of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, Tuesday announced that he was suspending all cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) until it takes steps to indict members of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) accused of human rights abuses.
In a letter addressed to the Prosecutor of the tribunal, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, Prof. Reyntjens said that failure by the ICTR to prosecute alleged perpetrators of the abuses was “meting out victor’s justice” and risked becoming “part of the problem and not the solution”.
He said that it was his knowledge that the “special investigative team” of the ICTR had gathered “compelling evidence on a number of massacres committed by the RPF in 1994”.
“These crimes fall squarely within the mandate of the ICTR, they are well documented, testimonial and material proof is available, and the identity of RPF suspects is known”, he wrote.
He added that that in not pursuing the RPF, the tribunal “fails to meet another stated objective, namely to “contribute to the process of national reconciliation and the restoration and maintenance of peace”.
The Belgian professor has published many books on the political upheavals that have marked the African Great Lakes region in past, especially Rwanda, and has been called on many occasions to testify at the ICTR as an expert witness for the prosecution.
“While I remain committed to the cause which is at the heart of the mandate of the ICTR, on ethical grounds I cannot any longer be involved in this process. I shall, therefore, not be able to co-operate with the OTP unless and until the first RPF suspect is indicted”, threatened the lawyer-cum-historian.
When he last testified at the tribunal in September 2004, Prof Filip Reyntjens had concurred with the prosecutor that the former Directeur de cabinet, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora had played a key role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, but let off the hook Bagosora’s co-accused, Brigadier Gratien Kabiligi, whom he said played no part in the killings.
There was no immediate response from the tribunal over the Belgian professor’s ultimatum.
KN/GF/FH (PR’’’0111e)
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